halp! pc will not boot up!

[jasey_2000uk]

hope someone can help me! i have had my emachines pc for about 4 or 5 years now but last night, i switched it on and a message came up saying something like "INSERT BOOT DISK AND CLICK ENTER" i havent got any systen boot disks and i turned it off. I then turned it back on again but it just comes straight onto the emachines logo screen and then freezes on it, although the hard drive is still making a sound.

 

please help! thanks!

 

 

jason

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Oh dear it sounds like the hard drive has died Jasey.

 

Did it actually say;

disk boot failure. insert system disk and press enter

 

Get back to us if this is what it said but it won't look promising I'll tell you that with a machine that's 5 years old.

[danzil]

do as wolfeymole suggest.

also please make sure that you have no floppy drive in your pc at boot.

maybe worth reset your bios back to factory defaults also.

regards

danzil

[jasey_2000uk]

hi. didnt think my pc would be playing up after 5 years. didnt think that was long to have a pc.

 

yes, that message does come up telling me to insert disk and press enter.

 

i dont have a floppy drive on it. though last year it picked up a virus and i had to have it restored to factory settings at a computer repair shop.

 

hope this can be sorted as ive loads of mp3s on there and other valuable files.

 

thanks.

jason

[Guest Wolfeymole]

If it definitely says "Disk boot failure" then you can say that the hard drive has died.

 

You may be able to recover your files by hooking it up to another pc as a Slave but don't bank on it.

 

If you can't then put it down to experience, buy a new hard drive and reinstall XP.

 

What Danzil means by the floppy disk aspect would bring an "NTLDR not found" error message which you have not seen I imagine?

 

By the way 5 years is long in the tooth for a computer.

[jasey_2000uk]

thx 4 your help. yeh, sumtimes the disk boot failure message appears or it just freezes on the logo screen.

 

I am taking it to be looked at today and hopefully, i may be able to rescue my files, all being well.

 

ill let u know what happens.

 

 

jason

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Well please don't take it to PC World as in my opinion their tech help is abysmal.

[jasey_2000uk]

no, i took it to a local computer repair shop and the guy knows all the ins and outs of pcs. He took the side off and checked the hard drive and mother board, etc, whilst i was there. he said sometimes the hard drive makes a clicking sound if its damaged but mine wasn't doing that. he is goin to have it until tuesday and see what he can do. hes also going to try and save my files too but he said he dont know if he can until hes checked it all over to see how damaged the hard drive is. fingers crossed though.

 

jason